In India over more than six percent Indian citizens have the mental illness like schizophrenia and bipolar disorders majorly due to lack of awareness. This was mentioned by the Union Health Minister JP Nadda on Tuesday in Rajya Sabha.

In 2005, The National Commission on Macroeconomic and Health conducted a survey and revealed that nearly 75 million people in India are having mental disorders like depression, stress, anxiety and schizophrenia.

According to the reports Union Minister said that “In 2005, the National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health reported that 10-20 million (1-2 percent of population) suffered from severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and nearly 50 million (5 percent of the population) from common mental disorders such as depression and anxiety, yielding an overall estimate of 6.5 percent of the population.”

He also said that the data provided was a decade old and it might be changed in the year 2015 due to the changing lifestyle. Also, most of the people in India suffering from mental disorders do not know that they are suffering from any such disease.

For the awareness and treating of the patients Nadda said that “there are three centrally-run mental health institutes, 40 state-run medical hospitals and 398 departments of psychiatry in various medical colleges (183 in government and 215 in private) in rural and urban areas. In addition, District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) in 241 districts in all the 36 states/UTs has been started by the government to treat mentally ill country citizens. The DMHP program includes school, workplace stress management, counseling, suicide prevention, etc.”

People should be aware and consult your mental doctor whenever you develop persistent feeling of emptiness or feeling sad or anxious, feeling hopeless or negative, irritability or restlessness, lack of interest in hobbies and other activities, loss of appetite and hallucinations in case of schizophrenia, then chances are there you might be suffering from mental disorder.